an outsider: too keen on systematic and nuanced argumentation to fit into a
media-driven world of punchy slogans and easy scapegoats, but also too interested
in changing the real world to become an expert who dug deep into one scientific
discipline. Given the rapidly growing popularity of transformation research over the
last five to ten years, in particular in the field of sustainable development, my notion
of being an outsider has fundamentally changed: transdisciplinary approaches have
become the new thing for tackling the persistent problems that sustainable development strategies face. This means that scholars not only connect different scientific
disciplines, but also integrate the insights of practitioners on the ground. The goal is
to create robust knowledge that not only refines existing theoretical hypotheses
about how humans and the world work, but also has relevance for the people
enacting change on the ground.
The term ‘transdisciplinary research’ was first introduced in 1970 by Erich
Jantsch, a Club of Rome member, to encapsulate the notion that inherited scientific
knowledge needs frequent confrontations with the ‘real world’ in order to test,
amend and form new assumptions. Only with such an approach would science
support the ability of a society to continually self-regenerate. This approach has not
been very popular in the Enlightenment-influenced sciences, however. Here, the
dominant ideal is of the positivist paradigm whose goal and premise it is that
universally true ‘laws’ governing human behavior and natural evolution can be
identified and fit into quantitative models and experiments with which future
developments can be predicted and managed. This still does, of course, require
researchers to make decisions about what they observe, how they quantify aspects
that cannot simply be tallied, and how they interpret their observations. This is why,
in scientific terms, paradigms are divided into assumptions that are epistemological
(what can we know), ontological (what can be said to exist and how we group those
things), and methodological (what guiding framework is suitable in solving a
problem). Some scientists also add axiological aspects, encompassing the choice of
relevant values. Depending on how these various aspects are defined, a single event
can be interpreted very differently. Likewise, proposed solutions for the problem
will vary significantly.
The transdisciplinary paradigm differs considerably from positivist ones in its
epistemology. For example, it does not involve the ambition of finding universal
laws that could be true forever. In its ontology it is constructivist or reflexive and
thus does not see ‘reality’ as something objective that can be observed by
researchers at a distance but instead as something intersubjectively created by
sense-making actors and thus subject to change. Meanwhile the current state of
reality will also impact the way humans—including researchers—make sense of
how the world objectively ‘is.’ As a result, no researcher or truth claim can declare
itself separated from reality. Our world, as quantum physics affirms, is constantly
evolving. German has a great word for ‘reality’ to capture this information-based
interplay: Wirklichkeit. Wirken means to ‘seem’ and ‘appear’ but also ‘have an
14
2 What Political Economy Adds to Transformation Research
media-driven world of punchy slogans and easy scapegoats, but also too interested
in changing the real world to become an expert who dug deep into one scientific
discipline. Given the rapidly growing popularity of transformation research over the
last five to ten years, in particular in the field of sustainable development, my notion
of being an outsider has fundamentally changed: transdisciplinary approaches have
become the new thing for tackling the persistent problems that sustainable development strategies face. This means that scholars not only connect different scientific
disciplines, but also integrate the insights of practitioners on the ground. The goal is
to create robust knowledge that not only refines existing theoretical hypotheses
about how humans and the world work, but also has relevance for the people
enacting change on the ground.
The term ‘transdisciplinary research’ was first introduced in 1970 by Erich
Jantsch, a Club of Rome member, to encapsulate the notion that inherited scientific
knowledge needs frequent confrontations with the ‘real world’ in order to test,
amend and form new assumptions. Only with such an approach would science
support the ability of a society to continually self-regenerate. This approach has not
been very popular in the Enlightenment-influenced sciences, however. Here, the
dominant ideal is of the positivist paradigm whose goal and premise it is that
universally true ‘laws’ governing human behavior and natural evolution can be
identified and fit into quantitative models and experiments with which future
developments can be predicted and managed. This still does, of course, require
researchers to make decisions about what they observe, how they quantify aspects
that cannot simply be tallied, and how they interpret their observations. This is why,
in scientific terms, paradigms are divided into assumptions that are epistemological
(what can we know), ontological (what can be said to exist and how we group those
things), and methodological (what guiding framework is suitable in solving a
problem). Some scientists also add axiological aspects, encompassing the choice of
relevant values. Depending on how these various aspects are defined, a single event
can be interpreted very differently. Likewise, proposed solutions for the problem
will vary significantly.
The transdisciplinary paradigm differs considerably from positivist ones in its
epistemology. For example, it does not involve the ambition of finding universal
laws that could be true forever. In its ontology it is constructivist or reflexive and
thus does not see ‘reality’ as something objective that can be observed by
researchers at a distance but instead as something intersubjectively created by
sense-making actors and thus subject to change. Meanwhile the current state of
reality will also impact the way humans—including researchers—make sense of
how the world objectively ‘is.’ As a result, no researcher or truth claim can declare
itself separated from reality. Our world, as quantum physics affirms, is constantly
evolving. German has a great word for ‘reality’ to capture this information-based
interplay: Wirklichkeit. Wirken means to ‘seem’ and ‘appear’ but also ‘have an
14
2 What Political Economy Adds to Transformation Research